Jigglesticks Winnie Jan report

Happy new year!!

thursday Jan 1st 2009

typical winter weather on a big lake, she snowed and then blowed!

the road at nodaks are holding up well.

I’m sure we will have a lot of plowing to do in the morning, but nothing we aren’t used to.

the walleyes and perch arent jumping out of the holes by any means, but we are getting enough to keep things interesting.

there have been three walleyes over 20 inches in two days with a few getting off as well. some eaters and some small ones too.

a few perch some small, some large and a few pike to boot, the biggest being just over 30 inches.

we will keep pushing to new areas to find fish.

Rick at highbanks is having one hell of a time getting his road established.

he had the road carved out to tamarac bar (one of my favorite spots) and fish house 4, two miles out, but a crack found it’s way across the road, flooding the immediate area. he decided to close the road again to allow it to heal up. a wise move.

now todays wind and light snow has filled the road from bank to bank with snow.

I have some tasks to tend to tomorrow but I figure on going over there saturday to lend a hand. hopefully we can get the road going and make the move from the south end to the north before monday.

I am adding a new house to the fleet.

this one will be called the nut house. I will have more details on it this weekend.

the ice is getting thicker. we had 18 inches three days ago. I think the spot we drilled today showed 20 inches.

I will report back this weekend.

Keep your stick on the ice!

tuesday December 30th 2008

Sunday January 4th 2009

has anybody screwed up a check in their checkbook yet writing the wrong year?

I always get caught in that one.

With this new batch of snow, I took advantage of a gap in guests, with the last ones pulling out at noon yesterday.

I moved my houses to shore at nodaks and will wait out the weather until it stops blowing. hopefully move up to Highbanks tomorrow.

the fishing in the area I chose at nodaks offered a couple things, first, good road conditions and a few fish.

the guests in the big house had the catch of the weekend though. they had dropped a full quart of captain morgan down the hole in 23 feet of water.

with the help of an underwater camera and a long wire, after several attempts to snag it, they decided to tape a flashlight to the camera to see better and that worked.

they got the noose they had rigged up over the neck of the bottle, and with a quick tug, sinched it tight and hauled it up!

I wonder what’s the limit on those?

The Grogans came up again this year, (waiting on pictures) and they also caught a nice mess of fish. some walleyes, some northern’s with Mel’s personal best a 30.5 inch pike.

Jeremy even caught a 25.5 inch eelpout..EEWWW!

so over all, the fishing was on the slow side, but not dead.

Hopefully I can make the move to Highbanks tomorrow and get spread out.

when you come up, keep in mind it is an extremely tough year to get out ANYWHERE.

safety is my first and biggest concern. after that it’s fish.

with the snowdepths, and slush in areas, travel is going to be very limited, so we are going to have company almost anywhere we set up. expect that. I’m not going to blow a gasket over it.

I will keep carving path’s to new areas hoping the moves will keep us on fish like last year.

with any luck, we’ll be looking back at this season with a smile on our faces!

Tuesday January 6th 2009

well we did it!

I finally got a house out on Highbanks road!

the bad spot in the road is healed up and we are now pushing forth.

the forecast looks favorable and I hope to have every house up there by friday at the latest.

now if the trucks hold together, we should be all over the place in no time.

the fish should be jumping out of the holes now that they know I’m back.

I didn’t measure the ice when I drilled holes tonight, but it’s the thickest I’ve drilled through this season. it has to be 20 + inches. I’ll get a measurement tomorrow.